"Jesus, what are you hyperventilating NOW for?"

Everyone I had ever known was dead.

"You kept it together long enough to escape the hospital..."

I really had been frozen in a vat of fucking ice cream for over a century.

"...in nothing but a Beefy Petey head and your gown..."

I'd trusted some jackass streamer within minutes of meeting him to run away from a hospital.

"...all while breaking in your new tofu lungs..."

And now I was in his apartment where he claimed to do surgery.

"And it's my apartment that freaks you out?! What you don't like how I decorate?"

"God fucking dammit Brock I'm going through a lot right now and I don't wanna hear shit from a street surgeon named after a pervy pokemon trainer about how I need to calm down!"

We stared at each other, Brock with his mouth hanging open. I left Brock staring at the space I had been in, kicking off my shoes and looking around. Clutching at routines from my time. The normality of it let me touch grass and ground myself as I fell into the routine of checking out the apartment of a new friend.

"You're right, I don't like how you decorate."

All of the furniture had been replaced with shiny white synthetic material that felt like velvet. Brock's bed and couch were both hover-enabled, allowing them to levitate in midair when not needed or curl up on themselves for storage. The ceiling was alive with a dazzling display of rainbow neon lights that danced across it without the use of any single bulb. I looked closer and noticed they were in the shape of small koi. Ripples of pink, green, and blue were sent swirling across the walls and created an eerie glow. What had been assumed to be nude paintings of women turned out to be colorful gifs suspended above a table against the far wall. There were no frames for the nude women, only bright sections illuminating the wall with art. As I drew closer to inspect the wall, various pictures and videos of Brock faded into view like so many instagram stories. The images dimmed as they extended into my periphery so that a circle came into focus with the sharpest image being the one I was focused on. As I stood there taking it all in, Brock appeared next to me, a smug smile on his face.

"First time you ever saw a smart home huh?"

"First time I saw one like this."

"Well maybe you don't like how I decorate, but howdya like this?"

He pointed proudly at the wall with the bright colors, and I realized it was actually a plaque commemorating him hitting 10,000 subscribers. As I gazed at it, pictures swirled into view on the wall. I saw Brock standing on a flying car holding what looked like a rifle with a digital display under the sight, Brock finger gunning the camera as he sprinted away from men with BeyondCow badges wearing expensive suits covered in paint, Brock doing a handstand from what looked like the edge of an unfinished skyscraper with the BeyondCow several stories logo below him.

"So you're some kind of streamer that gets views because you repeatedly prank BeyondCow? Aren't you afraid of getting sued or getting arrested?" I looked at him incredulously, wondering if I was safe at this apartment.

Brock laughed, "Get sued? What am I some corpo? Smog, you've got a lot to learn! Nobody gets sued unless they're a rank 50 citizen or higher! The courts don't waste time or money dealing with rank 5's like me!"

"There's ranks to citizenship? What the hell does that mean?"

"Look maybe you should sit down and have a drink, you look like you're giving your tofu a workout freakin out here."

I cautiously sat down on the sofa and took a few deep breaths. I accepted a blue fizzy drink and took a deliberate sip. I didn't want to find out if alcohol dissolved tofu.

"Relax it's beer"

"What kind of beer is blue?"

"Most beer? It's the algae."

That actually didn't bother me so much. Craft beer was always using some strange ingredients and I was pretty sure I'd read about some brewery doing this in my time. Besides, it tasted good and it didn't feature anything resembling a suicidal bovine mascot. I had more questions about why most beer had algae, but those could wait.

"Anyways, what's up with ranks of citizenship? What kind of government does that?"

"Well, governments don't really run the show as much as corps anymore. They exist, but mostly as a way to keep things running so the corps can keep profiting. So everyone has a rank to their citizenship. The higher you are, the more rights you get. If you're not working some cushy job that gives you rank, then the only way up is through Emoticoin™ or emos for short. The more subs, the more valuable you are, the higher your rank."

I took a big gulp of algae.

"You're telling me that you make a living as a prankster who constantly annoys one of the largest corporations in the world? And there's nothing they can do?"

"They could do lots. They could send hit squads after me, have me arrested, buy and evict me from my apartment. But I'm a small-time streamer and more importantly I live in Clownburg territory. I have to take risks to eat, but if they send someone after me I'll just make a video about it."

He scratched his chin and a wicked grin spread across his face.

"Actually, that could be a great idea! Let's throw down with some BeyondCow streamers! We'll be rich if we get backed by Clownburg!"

"That sounds incredibly naive, Brock. Plus I fucking hate social media. I don't want to go viral. The whole point of taking a security guard night job was to be less social, not more"

Brock cocked his head to the side and I sighed.

"Look I hate that I need to eat, breathe, and shit, but that don't change nothing. What are you gonna do to survive? You think anything you know how to do will get you a job?"

I watched as Brock's smile faltered.

"It's 2126 gramps, there ain't no other jobs for a night shift security guard who got frozen in a vat of ice cream. You gotta hustle and the only hustle you got is streaming."

"Well then I'll start hunting."

"Hunting?"

"Yeah I was always prepping to go off grid anyways."

"In Clownburg?!"

"Why not? I'll go out in the forest and hunt game. Maybe I'll sell the meat and make a living that way. It's a free country, right?"

Brock's face was a mixture of disbelief and disgust.

"Gramps, you have tofu lungs and no money. How are you gonna do any running or shooting out in the woods? Besides that's not what Clownburg is about! There's not forests here! That's some high rank BeyondCow shit! No BeyondCow corpo is gonna let you hunt on their land!"

"What about my property? I owned my house and about 100 acres of forest before I was frozen!"

"Good luck getting it back without a lawyer, which you would need to be rank 50 to even use in the first place."

"Then I'll just leave Clownburg and find a different forest."

"There ain't no public forests anymore, gramps! BeyondCow and the other corps own the forests, and the animals and the plants that are in them! You can't just wander off and expect to find food!"

My face grew hot as his words sunk in. What little of a plan I had was falling apart.

"What am I supposed to do, Brock? Just stay here and watch you prank BeyondCow streamers forever? Be your damn housemate while you get a pat on the back for not being a vegan?"

"No gramps! You're supposed to fight those vegan nazi sonsabitches with me! Yes we gotta stream while we do it, but so what if we make some emos on the way to pay for gear, lawyers, and the weapons to get back your house?! That's how we fight back! Besides what do you have to fuckin lose? Some property that you already lost 100 years ago? A brand new pair of lungs that goes better with Chinese food than your heart?"

I eyed him skeptically, but I wasn't happy that he was making sense. Except for one thing.

"What exactly do you have against BeyondCow? I don't throw around the term nazi lightly. I don't know if that's lost meaning over a century, but in my time that's the worst of the worst."

"BeyondCow is literally always invading ClownBurg territory and replacing body parts with tofu! Shit if you're from the area I RESCUED you from, then they definitely took your house too! They take our land, eliminate meat from our diet, and kill anyone found eating it! They say that it's our punishment for thousands of years of human oppression. People think they're trying to uplift animals to take over the world!"

I really didn't have many options if BeyondCow was bent on taking over the world anyways. With everyone I ever knew being dead, I didn't have much to lose and all I had wanted was to live off grid and not be bothered before I had 'died'.

"Why do you need me?"

Brock didn't even turn around as he pointed at the plaque on the wall.

"I got that three days ago. The same day I got you out of the ice cream vat. That was the kookiest goddamn thing I've ever seen and apparently a lot of other people thought so too. Every new sub I got wants to see what how you react to the world. You're a modern day caveman from before the rise of the Corporatocracies, gramps. And if we team up and take on BeyondCow when they wanted to use you to help take down ClownBurg?"

He whistled.

"We'd be a fucking sensation. We'd make millions."

I was still skeptical, but Brock's enthusiasm was infectious. Maybe I could give it a shot. At least to make enough cash so I could bail if I need to. I had to admit I was curious about the world since I'd been frozen and I didn't have a better idea.

"So what's the plan? How is this going to work?"

A grin cracked across Brock's face like I had just given a four year old a pony. It was more than a little off-putting. I preferred confused dog. Brock suddenly turned to the wall, clapped his palms against the side of his face, his mouth open and eyes wide in the stupidest, most exaggerated look of fake surprise I had ever seen. It was my turn to confused dog stare at him. I heard what sounded like camera go off and the wall across from the couch flashed a picture of me sitting next to Brock from a second ago. I rolled my eyes and collapsed back into the couch. This was going to suck.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"DON'T FORGET TO SMASH THE LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE BUTTON!" Brock roared with laughter.

"Man that was perfect. That'll be the thumbnail of the #GetGramps video. Ok, first things first, we gotta pull some vid from you escaping the hospital. Seeing you run out of there with a Beefy Petey costume was fucking lithium!"

"Wait, did you bring the cow head to make me look ridiculous on purpose?!"

Brock put on an exaggerated face of mock offense, bringing a hand to his mouth is apparent shock.

"Who me? No way gramps! I mean it was a brilliant way to make some emos and get you out of a hospital bill you'd have no shot of paying off anyways, but it was just the best thing I could think of to get you out of there."

"Fuck you, Brock."

He grinned, blew a kiss at me, and turned to the wall as the camera noise went off and another picture faded from the wall. I groaned again.

"Come on, don't be mad. Check this out."

He pressed a button and the wall began to hum softly. A screen appeared above his plaque with the website named Z. He tapped into it with his an odd wave of his hand and began pulling up footage of my escape from the hospital.

"Before you ask Gramps, yes I put micro-cams around the hospital before I went to bust you out."

I sat cross armed, but couldn't help laughing too as I watched myself running away like a lunatic with a giant cow head bouncing around on top of me. Brock began manipulating the video, adding music, sound effects, and other humorous flourishes until he had finished creating a mini-movie of my escape. The video ended with a shot of me hopping on the hoverbike. The blue afro Beefy Petey head bobbed in the wind like a coked out head banger at an EDM show. When he finished he turned back to me, rubbing his palms together.

"Now for the stream title. How about '#GetGramps: Beefy Petey's Escape Attempt Gone Wrong!' ?"

I groaned, "God no, please anything else."

"Fine, fine, fine. How about 'How about "#GetGramps: Hospital Escape Gone Wrong - Beefy Petey"?"

I threw up my hands, "Name it whatever, Brock. We had streaming platforms and stuff in my time, but I thought they were all super annoying and tried to avoid them. We're probably better off if you make the decisions. I'm totally new to this. Do I need to set up a profile so I can get my share of the Emos too?"

Brock pulled up another window with the sign up page for SOCIAL-AI THE WORLD'S BEST AND ONLY EVERYTHING PLATFORM.

"Oh shit I can login with my facebook account?"

"Never heard of a Facebook, but it looks like it works."

I logged in and was greeted with a meme from Star Wars declaring "IT'S AN OLDER CODE SIR, BUT IT CHECKS OUT". So the AI's got jokes. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like this. I'd have to see if I could disable communicating with me via memes. I rolled my eyes, clicked away and was brought to what appeared to be a home screen with tabs for various social media platforms, financial tools, an inactive one for cybernetic enhancements, and even an achievements tab. Each tab had a red notification bubble with a 0 on it, except the achievements tab which had 1. Confused why there was an achievements tab, I clicked on it. CONGRATULATIONS ON NOT BEING DEAD. IT WOULD APPEAR THIS WAS A BIGGER CHALLENGE FOR YOU THAN MOST PEOPLE SINCE YOU ALMOST GOT KILLED BY...YOU SERIOUSLY ALMOST GOT KILLED BY ICE CREAM. GOOD FOR YOU I GUESS. THAT HAS TO BE A FIRST IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. IF YOU DIE AGAIN TRY TO DO IT WITH ICE CREAM AND I'LL GIVE YOU AN ACHIEVEMENT FOR BEING THE FIRST EVER.

"Uhh...why do I get achievements for stuff that happens to me? And is the AI always this sassy?"

Brock looked up from what he was doing, "Achievements are usually for things that drive up engagement so they incentivize you to do things that keep people active on S-AI. They're not nothing though. They help determine your class when you get to Rank 5. Certain achievements will help you get followers with related demographics, and unlock relevant cyber upgrades."

I found some other metrics under my profile: was listed as 0: non-citizen, EmotiCoins™: 0, Cybernetic Augmentation System Tree (CAST): 0 (Locked).

Meanwhile, Brock tagged my username as a co-creator and clicked post.

"THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL-AI, WOULD YOU LIKE NOTIFICATIONS SET UP FOR THIS POST?

I got a brief glimpse of Brock's user profile as I watched him set up a notification alert for view count spikes. Rank 5: 100,032 subscribers, 2,503 EmotiCoins™, Cybernetic Augmentation System Tree (CAST): 2 (assigned). Before I could ask more about the profile and what everything meant, Brock piped up.

"Hey, gramps," he said, "we gotta do something about those tofu lungs of yours. You're gonna need something better if you want to survive out here. I'm thinking cyber-wear. It'll give you some killer abilities and help keep you alive."

"Can't I just get some normal lungs?"

"Not unless you're some secret millionaire."

I raised an eyebrow at the thought of having machinery implanted into my body. "I don't know, man. Don't get me wrong, I've gotta get this tofu out, but I'm not too keen on having a guy who's primary job is streamer putting cyberwear in me. Can't I go to a different hospital?"

Brock looked annoyed, "No problem, secret millionaire, since the streamer who got 50% of his followers for his cybernetics videos ain't good enough for ya, we'll just waltz on down to our local hospital and buy you a pair of ORGANIC LUNGS which match your blood type, antigens, and activity requirements. Then we'll wait weeks while you go through rehab and-"

I grimaced. "Ok, ok, you've made your point. What are you suggesting and how do I know it won't kill me?"

"I'm suggesting a lung upgrade. It'll be a bit pricey, but the alternative is you keeling over from tofu buildup and me having to find a new partner.

"Can I see some of the videos you were talking about? There's a lot that I'm being asked to swallow right now."

Brock pulled up a playlist of videos called EPIC UPGRADES.

"Can you show me the lungs you've done before?"

We proceeded to watch video after video of Brock's annoying sound effects, reactions, and shitty scene cuts as he narrated various surgeries.

"Wait, so you remove tofu lungs on a regular basis? You make this stuff look easy."

"Well, call it my upstanding more-el-fibre that I like to do charity work. Also I like jobs that produce content for the next video."

I eyed the suggested videos list and saw one titled "Feeding tofu-lung Chinese food to BeyondCow Corpos". I decided that I could wait to see that one until after my lungs were out.

"Ok Brock, I'll take the upgrade."

I couldn't believe what I had just agreed to. How could I have let myself be roped into this? Was it just because I had no other options or was there some part of me that believed in Brock and his mission? Either way, I felt like an idiot. But, I couldn't deny that I was curious about the future and how things had changed. Even if Brock was a jackass, he seemed like a jackass who was going to get me lungs. And, he'd saved me from a lifetime of breathing tofu.

"Perfect! Let's go pick out some lungs! Before we head out though, check your profile. We need you at rank 1 first."

"Why?"

"Otherwise we have to buy things with cash from a real job instead of with Emos. S-AI restricts purchases to people who have a stake in using the platform."

I pulled up my profile on the wall and saw I had notifications. The first was informing me that I had been tagged as a co-creator. ***

The hoverbike ride to the Cybernetics shop was uneventful. Brock had put on a playlist and sung loudly, but at least it drowned out his constant talking.

We arrived and a small woman with a pixie cut and thick glasses was waiting for us.

"I'm Dr. Bree, but you can call me Breezy."

She looked like she was in her late 20's, but I couldn't tell for sure. She was beautiful, but in a that's probably plastic surgery kind of way.

"Nice to meet you, Breezy. This is Alan. He needs a lung upgrade. He's got tofu"

"Hi, Breezy. Yeah, it's uh, not exactly what I wanted, but I'm in a tight spot and need the tofu out."

"Doing more 'charity' cases Brock? I thought BeyondCow would've wised up to the Chinese food by now."

"Nah Breeze, I got a whole new line of content planned out. What lungs do you have for a Rank 1? Something that we can upgrade down the line."

Bree whistled. "Wow, this is a charity case. You're lucky, kid. We've got the Hummingbird model A. It's an avian inspired model so it's got continuous circulation. At rank 1, it'll only be putting out a single MP, but it should scale up nicely if he ranks up enough. That's also an easier model to adjust with minimal invasiveness in the future if he needs new components."

Brock cocked an eyebrow. "Just a single Phelps?"

I looked at them both. "Wait do you mean lung efficiency is measured by comparing it to Michael Phelps?! Horsepower for cars and Phelps for humans?"

Brock stared at me. "How on earth did you know that?"

"Dude, I was alive when Michael Phelps broke all of his records."

Brock looked confused for a moment before understanding dawned.

"Oh right. I forgot the metric was based on an olympian from way back."

"I can't believe everyone still knows him!"

"Ah well, he was the last orgo to set that many records before they legalized steroids."

I decided to just let that one go. Of course they legalized steroids. Why wouldn't they. Brock turned back to Bree, unfazed.

"I've heard good things about hummingbirds, but maybe that's because I've never seen them used by a Rank 1. Is this one of the models that needs a heart to go with it?"

"It's recommended, but not necessary. Continuous circulation of air and blood pairs nicely. The corp that makes it is always word vomiting about how much synergy there is. They're annoying, but they're not wrong."

This was all making me feel jumpy. "Whoa, I understand lung shopping since mine are tofu, but now we're replacing my perfectly good heart? Do I really need to?"

Brock gave me an incredulous stare. "Look gramps, it's up to you. Maybe it was just your air sacs that were filled with gelato, but there's no way your heart didn't take a beating as well. It would be easier and safer to do both at once. But if you wanna go without a heart and just float through the world, be my guest."

Bree smiled. "He's right, you know. There are plenty of people living with cybernetics, even Rank 1s. Anyone who can afford it really. It wasn't necessary 100 years ago, but we all have something since pollution was legalized in 2025. Everyone could use something."

I gulped, feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of getting both my lungs and heart replaced with cybernetics. But Brock and Breezy made it seem like it was a routine procedure, something that could be done without much complication. And as much as I hated to admit it, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life wheezing on tofu-filled lungs and feeling like I was running on fumes.

"Okay," I said, my voice shaking slightly. "Let's do both. I want to be sure I'm getting the best upgrade possible."

Brock grinned, slapping me hard on the back. "That's the spirit! Don't worry, Alan, you're going to come out of this feeling better than ever."

Breezy led us into a back room, filled with all sorts of cybernetic equipment and monitors. She instructed me to lie down on a metal table, while Brock stood to the side, filming everything on his holocam.

"Okay, Alan, we're going to sedate you now," Breezy said, holding up a syringe filled with a clear liquid. "This won't hurt a bit, I promise."

I closed my eyes, feeling a pinch as the needle entered my arm. My mind went fuzzy, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sound of beeping monitors and the feeling of plastic tubing in my nose.

"How do you feel?" Brock asked, leaning over me with a concerned look.

I tried a deep breath, and to my surprise, I wasn't able to. I began to panic. I sat up in horror, dimly aware that much movement should have been excruciating after a major surgery.

"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"

Dr. Bree looked at a monitor, unconcerned. "You don't need to breathe,"

"What do you mean I don't need to breathe?! I'm going to die! Do something!"

She looked at me with a smile, "I see that you forgot the new lungs do that for you. You have continuous circulation. Air comes in through your left nostril and out of your right."

I was never going to get used to being dumbstruck, but it was becoming a more familiar sensation. Curious, I reached up and felt underneath my nostrils. Sure enough, I could feel air being sucked into my left and flowing out of my right.

"Brock you dumb fuck pokemon trainer! Our first video is going to be me running you down to kick your ass!"

"Geez calm down! if you don't like it we can always upgrade or adjust the settings when you hit rank 2. That'll be by the end of the week easy!"

I sat there my face going red, just experiencing what should have been heavy breathing. It instead remained an unexciting smooth and constant flow.

"That's weird, but at least I can breathe again. And you replaced my heart? It's not going to kill me or anything, right?"

Bree shook her head. "Not with the Hummingbird model. It's got a built-in filter and purifier that keeps you clean from pollutants. You may need a tune up once in a while, but you'll be fine. The corp that makes it is the largest provider of cybernetics.

They might have a shitty CEO, but the cybernetics are fine."

I pondered for a moment, and decided to be brave. "Can I see it?"

Bree nodded. "Sure, it's your body, after all." A screen popped up from the side of the examination table. "Just take a look at the download. We uploaded everything to your new software."

She handed me what appeared to be a leather pilot helmet from the 1800s.

"Umm, what is that for?"

"Brock said that you didn't want any neural implants, so this is how you'll use AR. It's about the only way to keep it on your head if you're running or in combat."

I glared at Brock who was deliberately looking away, hands clasped behind his back trying to look innocent.

"Of course. I'm sure there weren't any other good options."

I put on the helmet reluctantly, feeling ridiculous and instantly a screen popped up in the middle of my field of vision. I accessed a folder labeled 'Body' and opened it up, scanning through the files. Hummingbird Model A CardioPulm Combo. Rank: 1. I clicked on the file which opened up a display showing various metrics. Lung Flow Rate: 1 liter/minute, Filtration: 0% full, Blood Oxygen Saturation: 100%, Cardiac Output: 5.25 LPM, Heart Rate Equivalent: 75bpm, Filtration: 0% full.

"Ok, so how do I go about upgrading this? I think I'll be perfectly happy having the heart and lungs of Michael Phelps, but I do want air to flow normally out of my nose."

Brock grinned, "That's where I come in. There's two ways you can upgrade your cyber. You can either be a secret millionaire, or you can play the Social-Ai game with me. If you get enough followers, you'll rank up and gain a class and the AI will give you big discounts to encourage you to keep going with the content that drove enough engagement to reward you. So if we make some more videos that go viral we can upgrade those lungs!"

I frowned. "Wait, so being an influencer is my health insurance premium?"

Brock scratched his chin pensively. "Hmmm, yeah pretty much. I never thought of it that way, but I guess you can think of it that way."

I kind of hated that. The sooner I could make enough money to go off grid or take back my land, the better.

"Alright, so what videos will we have to make?"

Brock grinned. "Ah well, I got bored during your surgery so I looked up that pokemon thing you kept calling me-"

"Wait you don't have pokemon in the future?"

"I found out that Nintendo refused the great corporate arms race and called for peace. They were one of the first companies to be wiped out. So anyways I looked up pokemon to figure out why you were calling me a pervert, which still don't make sense, but it gave me an idea!"

My metal heart dropped and I felt a cold sweat on the back of my neck.

"Please tell me you're not suggesting-"

"Call me the PokeMan master, because we're battling some BeyondCow corpos!"